I think it's description of the online problem is good but the conclusion is a bit of a washy mix of it's a problem to worry about/deal with, and the numbers are so small we don't need to worry.
My personal opinion is that it's probably not a worry unless what we see on the streets is the tip of a much larger iceberg.
That’s an interesting view. Maybe spending too much time on a subject like this causes someone to amplify the threat in their mind. I’ve been immersed in it for quite some time, and on regular visits to X, get deluged by effluence from the likes of various GB News presenters and their cast-offs, like Fox, Wootton and Calvin Robinson. So perhaps I can’t see the wood for the trees.
But anyway, Ebner and Mason’s thesis goes something like this:
1. The somewhat amorphous but very real and interconnected global far-right have become adept at manipulating social media and have succeeded in achieving mainstream acceptance of aspects of their radical agenda.
2. Examples of this include the adoption of baseless conspiracy theories like ‘Eurabia’/Great Replacement by prominent politicians (Meloni, Orban) and the electoral successes enjoyed by populist radical right parties around the world (which can include the transformation of previously mainstream parties of the right).
3. This has caused societies to become more fissiparous to the point where democracy itself is being undermined, and in particular Muslims are at risk from anti-Muslim bigotry.
4. Although largely unstated, the big worry seems to be that there will be a slide into and eventual embracing of outright fascism.
Over and against all that, it could be argued that even the populist radical right are still democratic, though Orban’s Hungary is a worrying lesson in how bad things are getting. For example, in his book The Far Right Today, Cas Mudde writes that ‘Hungary is no longer liberal or democratic. It has become a competitive authoritarian state, which allows an increasingly embattled and harassed opposition to exist only on the political margins.’
Additionally, it has to be remembered that even political extremists rarely resort to violence, be they Islamist, far-right, far-left, or whatever, and genuinely anti-democratic parties like, say, Greece’s XE enjoy little support.
Overall, the risk of a repeat of the worst horrors perpetrated by fascists in the past therefore remains unlikely, as does the idea that some kind of Caliphate will eventually be established in Europe.
Think that summarises the thesis and antithesis.
One other thing that bothers me is that, as I have said before on here, although we are a species that is capable of acts of selflessness when it comes to people that we hardly know, we are also still very tribalistic and capable of being turned against others quite easily. So it is a concern that some populists have become so proficient at exploiting that latter tendency.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
